Anti-thrombus drugs extracted from acutus venom have been reported in the literature, e.g., “Preparation and Study of Anti-thrombus Enzymes No. 1, 2, and 3”, Journal of the Medical Univ. of China, 1989.18 (special issue); and “Technique for Extracting Definriogenase from the venom of Agkistrodon acutus,” CN 92102645.5 (CN 1065680.A). These anti-thrombus drugs are proteinase components extracted from the snake venom. They act like thrombase with hemorrhagic side-effect. In addition, some of these products are not single component proteinase, but a mixture of different components, which limits the pharmaceutical application of these drugs in human.
Other snake venom derived pharmaceutical products include Ancrod, Trigtamin and Integrilin (see Matsuzaki et al., Biochem. Biophy. Res. Com. 220(2):382-387, 1996; Morita et al., Natural Toxins II, pp187-196, Edited by B. R. Singh and A. T. Tu, Plenum Press, New York, 1996; U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,196,403, 5,242,810, 5,453,370, 4,017,012, 5,344,783, 5,686,571, 5,523,292, 5,066,592 and 5,342,830).